First Solar claims 21% efficiency for thin-film PV cell

First Solar claims to have achieved 21% conversion efficiency for its cadmium-telluride (CdTe) PV research cell, as certified by the Newport Corporation’s Technology and Applications Center (TAC) PV Lab.

The cell was constructed at the company’s Perrysburg, Ohio, manufacturing factory and Research & Development Center, using processes and materials designed for commercial-scale manufacturing.

This certified result bests the previous CdTe record of 20.4% conversion efficiency, which was set by First Solar in February of 2014, and represents the seventh substantial update to CdTe record efficiency since 2011. The achievement is said to have placed First Solar’s CdTe research cell efficiency above copper indium gallium diselenide based solar cells (CIGS) at 20.9%, and well above multicrystalline silicon (mSi), which peaked at 20.4% in 2004.

“We have just begun to reveal the true unrealised potential of CdTe PV,” said Raffi Garabedian, First Solar’s chief technology officer.

Garabedian noted that while competing technologies are using increasingly costly materials and cell processes in order to deliver moderate performance gains, First Solar is establishing a rapid path to industry-leading energy densities, while simultaneously improving manufacturing metrics.

“Our significant investment in development of CdTe thin-film technology has enabled a rapid rate of improvement and gives us tremendous confidence in the future,” said Markus Gloeckler, First Solar vice president for advanced research. “We have made outstanding improvements in all aspects of our thin-film solar cells and are aggressively pursuing the commercialisation of these advanced technologies in our product.”

At an analyst briefing last March, First Solar presented a technology roadmap anticipating a 22% research cell efficiency milestone in 2015. Today’s announcement indicates First Solar is steadily tracking to achieve that goal ahead of schedule.

First Solar has continued to transfer its success in the R&D lab into its commercially produced modules, increasing its average production module efficiency to 14% in the second quarter of 2014, up 0.5% from the first quarter of the year, and up 0.7% from FY2013. The company’s lead line was producing modules with 14.1% average efficiency at the end of the second quarter of 2014.